Letters to the Editor
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filmacopia sounds like fun to me
Just when I swore I could not handle one more film about the holocaust or ... making pianos? Well anyway, you had me at vainglorious and phantasmagorical.
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Handcrafted precision
In his review of "Note by Note", Andrew describes the Steinway piano as "...the most elaborate and precise handcrafted machine made anywhere in the world". Astonishing instruments that they are, such high-end pianos (just as those made by Fazioli, Bösendorfer, and the other truly-elite builders), it's true they are as precise as any artisan product can be.
However, they're not quite the "most elaborate" such creations, at least by size; that place would have to be given to the many first-class pipe organs around the world. Taking the same results-oriented artistic standards, these instruments involve countless custom-built parts, integrated with the arts of architecture, woodworking, metallurgy, and electronic/computer design in creating instruments of astonishing complexity, no two of which are alike.
Such builders as Fisk, Mander, and Schoenstein, among many others, are engaged in this monumental work every day, both in creating new instruments for churches and concert halls and in conserving, restoring, and rebuilding instruments dating back as much as 250 years or so, all with museum-quality work. Anyone attracted by the impeccable products of Steinway would do well to look further into organbuilders and other instrument makers, who are certainly the most numerous and skilled practicioners of handcrafted work anywhere, in surprisingly vital and vibrant ways of continuing their encyclopedic knowledge of past practice, whie integrating the best of new technologies into their products for the enjoyment of future generations.
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Psst! "impresarios" aren't who you think they are
About that Steinway grand and the folks who play it, your reviewer writes ". . . observe concert (i>impresarios Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Lang Lang and Hélène Grimaud trying them out. . ." No, dude, sorry: the impresario is the one who rents the hall, signs the talent, calls the PR flaks, and all that. He's Joe Blow of "Joe Blow Presents" . . . The talent being presented might be some virtuosos, if the impresario has some suction.
. . . But I'm glad to see the review online.